16 Matching Annotations
  1. Jul 2019
    1. The Enlightenment was always a self-consciously minority movement.

      The enlightenment did not appeal to people at the time

    1. Despite the serious wrong done to us, the occupation of the port of Kiaochow was undertaken with the greatest care. We wish for the continuation of the friendship that has so long bound Germany with China and which so far has never been clouded.

      Germany wants to continue friendly relations while also being Asia's equal

    1. ake up the White Man’s burden — The savage wars of peace — Fill full the mouth of Famine And bid the sickness cease;

      Are they talking about the sacrifices the colony made?

    1. All told, he was traveling for nearly thirty years.

      Its amazing Ibn Battuta traveled so long and experienced so many different cultures

    2. These were his own maxims or sayings, known in Mongolian as biligs or bileks. The maxims were not laws but were used to guide proper behavior and conduct. A person who did not follow or who strayed from them was often viewed in a negative light, while someone who adhered to them was considered a paragon of virtue.

      Along with a set of laws that citizens did not see, another set of rules was set in place along side the laws.

    1. The king speaks to this effect: — ‘Ye numerous officers who remain from the dynasty of Yin, great ruin came down on Yin from the want of pity in compassionate Heaven, and we, the princes of Chow, received its favouring decree.

      The Chow was blessed by God to rule while the Yin was doomed to fall

    2. If you can reverently obey, Heaven will favour and compassionate you. If you cannot reverently obey, you will not only not have your lands, but I will also carry to the utmost Heaven’s inflictions on your persona.

      The king says if you obey me God will reward you but if you disobey I will be "forced" to punish you.

    3. Then Heaven no longer regarded nor heard him, but disallowed his great appointment, and inflicted extreme punishment

      The "mandate of heaven" is basically a way of justifying ones actions by manipulating the Bible.

    4. It is recognized as perhaps the most important extant work for the study of ancient Chinese political thought — thought that still has wide influence on contemporary political structure in China.

      I recently wrote a paper in another class that was about the Tiananmen Square Massacre and how the Chinese Government has enforced censorship of all of its media, so reading about the Mandate of Heaven helps to put these events into context

    1. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

      Free trade

    2. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

      reduction of national weapons

    1. The Qing established a relatively limited system of trade known as the “Canton system,” in which Europeans were allowed only a fixed period every year in which to trade and in which all trade had to be conducted with a licensed group of merchants known as the Cohong

      It is interesting because when people think of trade and leadership people think of Europe not China, but this is before Europe gained control.

    2. Despite the pomp and circumstance of the embassy, the Chinese ultimately rejected the British request, stating emphatically that the Chinese were not in need of any British commercial goods and that the British, if they wanted to trade in China, must follow the existing rules

      It was likely that due to this attitude by the Chinese government they later fell behind in technological advancements

    1. Many of the Aztec written codices were labeled as works of the devil and destroyed. Between 1540 and 1585 a Spanish priest, Bernardino de Sahagún, worked closely with educated Aztecs and compiled twelve books of information about their culture.

      This seems to be a common thread in history, that important works of a culture are attempted to be destroyed, and managed to at least be partially preserved. We saw this in Unit 1 when a copy of the Classic of History was saved

  2. Jun 2019
    1. Most of us get our first formal exposure to history from secondary sources, such as school textbooks or historical monographs, or even from tertiary sources, such as encyclopedias, online reference sites, or commercial study guides like CliffsNotes or SparkNotes.

      While information presented in a fashion such as this is easier to understand, it is not always 100% reliable. As the saying goes, "the winners write history".

    2. genre of similar sources

      As mentioned earlier in the reading, sometimes primary sources can be difficult to understand. Perhaps other similar documents may shed some light on the context and/or true meaning of the document.